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Now open - Mystery Academy: School for Young Detectives!

Schools & Groups

Projects & Partnerships

In a city in which 26% of the population live below the poverty line, The Story Museum has a lively and vibrant participation programme, working with selected schools, community groups and families where we can have an especially significant impact on literacy, creativity, wellbeing and social cohesion.

Thanks to our generous funders, we can offer activity at a heavily subsidised rate or cost-free to participants enabling those who cannot usually access our offer to engage with the transformative power of story.

Person doing craft activity at a table
You have made students who don’t want to write, want to write! - Headteacher, June 2022

Alongside our formal learning programme which is available to all schools, we develop projects in partnership with selected schools and groups where we can have an especially significant and positive influence on literacy, creativity and wellbeing.

These tend to be funded projects which means we can offer activity at a heavily subsidised or cost-free rate to participants enabling us to reach those who wouldn’t ordinarily engage in a mainstream cultural offer. Projects can last anywhere from a few weeks to several years and we always aim to create impact that outlasts our own involvement, with both individuals and partner organisations.

Two children smiling at each other making a sculpture

Our Current Projects

Two teenagers gazing up at our Blue Sky courtyard

Story Shapers

This programme will create the next generation of story makers by enabling 12 to 16-year-old Story Creators, Story Correspondents and Story Curators to work side by side with arts professionals on a range of exciting projects.

Find out more about Story Curators - including our FREE summer holiday workshops - here

A small child banging a drum in Small Worlds

Start With a Story

Start with a Story is a three-year project for early years children and their families, who are less likely to be able to access cultural activity in areas of disadvantage in Oxfordshire. By providing in-centre opportunities for story-based learning and following up with Story Museum visits we aim to empower children to be the narrator of their own story and equip them with the tools they need to prepare them for future success. Our partners for 23-24 are Growing Minds and Donnington Doorstep.

“My 2-year-old was so keen to get the story started on week 3 that she ran outside to get her mum shouting excitedly “Mummy Story!” and clapped her hands.” - Participant, June 2023

Two students reading a book in the Alice in Wonderland story space

Spellbound Schools

By providing a year-long programme of Museum visits and in-school workshops, a weekly reading club for targeted students, a magical Story Suitcase and teacher CPD in oral storytelling, we establish an ethos of stories into our selected schools' communities. Our Spellbound Schools for 2025-2027 are West Oxford Community Primary School, St John Fisher School, Orchard Meadow Primary School, John Henry Newman Academy, St Mary and St John CE Primary School, Abbey Woods Academy, Church Cowley St James Primary School.

A Story Museum Leader teaching a class

Extreme Reading Adventures

Now in its ninth iteration, our much-loved project engages 24 nominated students who, over 6 weeks, are gifted a book per week and an adventure linked to the book. This project has been running since 2014 with outstanding impact results on raising students’ motivation to read for pleasure.

A group of teachers in the Magic Common Room

Reading Teachers = Reading Pupils: Founded by Cheltenham Festivals

RTRP is a reading group for teachers to ignite their love of children's literature, because when teachers read, children read. 15 teachers from our Spellbound Schools and beyond are gifted 5 high quality children's books over the course of a year.

"I have learnt so much and developed more confidence and knowledge about children's literature and reading for pleasure. It has been invaluable for my teaching career!" Participating teacher

Past Projects

Story Connectors: Supported by The National Heritage Lottery Fund

Story Connectors was a creative programme for young people, inviting them to respond our collections, including films, books, video games, plays, poems and songs. Over a 12 month period 161 young people worked with industry professionals to learn new skills in creating content for zines, films, podcasts and games. All the outputs were shared on the new 1001 Stories website, the digital home of our collections.

Digital Dreamers: Supported by The National Heritage Lottery Fund

Digital Dreamers was a year-long skills development programme for 22 young people (age 11-30) from historically marginalised backgrounds, including young people with learning disabilities and autism. Through hands-on games design, participants explored story heritage and learnt how to design prototype games inspired by a story from the collection.
These games were showcased in The Story Arcade gallery and published on the new 1001 Stories website, giving young people the powerful experience of seeing their work live in a museum setting.
The programme was delivered in partnership with MindJam, industry professionals in games design, alongside The Story Museum’s expertise in story heritage.

The Story Exchange: Funded by Paul Hamlyn

This was a year of advanced, practice-based CPD for teachers to explore and develop the impact of oracy on socio-emotional literacy in students. 14 teachers involved from 8 partner schools (St Christopher’s CE Primary School, John Henry Newman Academy, Abbey Woods Academy, St Francis CE Primary, St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, St Ebbe’s C of E Primary and St Mary’s and St John’s C of E Primary School) trained in oral storytelling techniques and team-delivered storytelling to students with Story Leaders.
See the project padlet here.

Everything is Connected

Working with the Cultural Programme, we commissioned three new stories by Piers Torday, Sita Bramachari and Patience Agbabi on climate activism and a new future. The award-winning writers ran workshops in secondary schools, adult masterclasses and panel discussions on how stories can help us imagine a better future throughout the Autumn of 2023.

The Wild Escape: Funded by ArtFund

To coincide with our 2023/24 temporary exhibition, Brilli-ANT, we welcomed over 50 students for sponsored visits to the Museum to co-curate insect sculptures and pilot our new Minibeast Adventure, a climate-themed session.

Minecraft Museum: Funded by the ArtFund

21 pupils from 2 local secondary schools created a digital version of The Story Museum on Minecraft. The students also added stories not currently featured in The Story Museum such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Caribbeanity Now: Partnership with The Oxford Research Centre in Humanities (TORCH) researching, sharing and celebrating Caribbean Stories with intergenerational participants in Oxford.

Storyteller, Jan Blake shared Caribbean stories with students from Pegasus School and St John Fisher Academy. The children also explored how stories travel and the cultural and historical forces that shape stories. Working with ACKHI (African and Caribbean Kultural Heritage Initiative) Jan also met Caribbean and African elders living in Oxford, who fondly shared memories of the stories, songs and riddles they grew up with.

Story Stars
Artist in Residence, Julia Head worked with a group of disabled children and young people to co-create a pilot installation to make the Museum more accessible.

A Minecraft version of The Story Museum

Project Evaluation documents

  • Amal Meets Alice Event Report PDF (3.474 MB)
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  • April 2021 March 2022 Participation Projects download PDF (2.874 MB)
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  • April 2022 March 2023 Participation projects download PDF (4.372 MB)
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  • April 2023 March 2024 Particpation projects download PDF (150.961 KB)
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  • April 2024 March 2025 Participation projects PDF (99.855 KB)
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